Platinum rain fell upon stone boxes full of sand and seeds, soaking in, turning orange dirt into browns and tans. Bright green shoots erupted from the low-quality soil, stretching into the dim light above. Storm clouds covered the sky, but sunlight still shone through to the city below, to the Gardens, and their workers.
People harvested everything they could, and replaced the plants as necessary. So of them had been doing this sort of harvesting for months, now. Not every farr left for the farms of the Greensoil Republic, after all. The 'old hands' who chose to stay guided those who had never done this before; those who wanted first pick and free food by the right of work.
Soon enough, rice and potatoes and thirty seven other types of partially processed or raw goods began to stream into the temporary markets erected near the Human District, outside the rain. Most of that food left those markets in large crates, packed full, destined for grocers and restaurants. Tomorrow, the temporary markets would open to the public.
There were quite a few logistical problems and angry words and minor fights happening all around the Gardens, simultaneously, but the goods were cheap, and plentiful, and the Guard was on duty, making sure that nothing too disruptive happened.
In the course of the first harvest, Erick made a few discoveries. The first, was that it was easy to hold his own [Exalted Storm Aura] into the shape it needed to be, in order to rain on the Garden, by itself. The second, much nicer discovery, was that he could set an Ophiel atop his house, inside the Restful air of the [Prismatic Ward], and have that Ophiel cast [Exalted Storm Aura] almost exactly as Erick had done himself.
Without Clarity, or Sculpt Spell, or Erick's Favored Spell, or even Aurify's radius bonus to all auras, Ophiel had a lot larger drain on his mana than Erick had on his. For Ophiel, the 1 Mana per second of [Exalted Storm Aura] was 5 Mana per second, taking into account all the necessary shapings to keep the spell in the proper formation. But at Rest, inside the dense air of the [Prismatic Ward], Ophiel regenerated 8 mana per second.
As Erick handed the spell over to Ophiel atop the roof of Erick's mage tower, Ophiel trilled in happy violins and energized guitars. He sang at the storm above, a hundred eyes wide open across his full, three ter body, taking in all the sights around him, making sure he was casting the spell exactly as needed.
Rain on the Gardens, and nowhere else!
Erick left Ophiel to his assignnt then went to speak to Calizi and Rollo about selling his own vegetables and the market prices of various foodstuffs, but the two older incani launched into an imdiate argunt over the price of potatoes. That was enough of that for Erick, so he went and worked in his own garden; it had gotten so unintentional platinum rain, and needed so pruning because of that.
Erick had never rained platinum across the whole Human District before today. So problems rapidly appeared with the rain, in light of this experint. Platinum rain slowly, but surely, collected into puddles around the not-flat-at-all Human District. So of those puddles beca minor lakes. So of it ran into the sandy soil of Erick's own green space, so he shored up the [Weather Ward]s around the garden and added small walls of stone at the edges, to keep the water out.
More than a few of the growing spaces out there in the Garden were experiencing the sa problems. Ophiel was raining properly, but so plots were ill-designed, or near an unintentional platinum river. People scrambled to divert the rain to where it needed to go. More than a few people raced around, creating ditches, while organizers directed them from [Scry] eyes in the sky. The only council mber who seed to have made his plots well was Kip, the man with all the rice fields. His workers had already drawn ditches into the Human District to collect the rain. Those ditches were quickly connected to the new ditches, solving most of the district's water problems with one elegant solution.
But even with all the small problems Erick saw, no one asked him to hold off on the rain, so he got down to his own business.
With a thousand telekinetic hands made of air and intent, Erick harvested potatoes, picked tomatoes, plucked carrots, unearthed onions, and grabbed everything else that looked even the slightest bit overgrown.
Eventually, hours later, a blushing young orangescale girl interrupted him from the side of his garden, while he was still deep in the herbs and listening to Ophiel sing. It was past noon; he could stop now. Erick nodded to the girl and had Ophiel stop. The winged [Familiar] squawked at being interrupted, but he cut the rain anyway, then gladly trilled in violins as Erick offered up his shoulder as a perch. As Ophiel turned tiny and took his spot, Erick offered the girl so vegetables from his garden, but she silently shook her head and took off running, back to the edge of town.
Poi stood to the side this whole ti, under his own [Weather Ward], silent, and observant.
Erick stepped out of the herbs, to stand by his fresh harvest. He asked, "Grilled veggies for dinner?"
"As you wish." Poi said, "I'd prefer fish, but the lake is not yet carved and it won't be stable enough to harvest for months, anyway. I think I will miss that part of Oceanside, most of all."
Erick smiled. "That reminds . It's ti to start trying to recreate [Teleport]."
As the clouds above wisped away on the northern winds, Poi frowned.
Erick noticed. "It's not going to be that bad."
"There will be explosions." Poi added, "There's always explosions."
Erick laughed, as he telekinetically picked up his produce, and said, "Not always!"
- - - -
In one of the larger rooms on the third floor, where no one lived and nothing was stored and the occasional lesson was taught via conjured blackboards, Erick played around with [Lightwalk].
Lightwalk, instant, close range, 5 MP per second Variable
You are the light.
Like all of the other 'minimally described' spells, [Lightwalk] was deceptively deep. He hadn't read much on the skill, but he knew about what it was supposed to do, thanks to his talks with his daughter, back before she started sleeping.
Erick flickered into insubstantial light as the spell shifted his entire body into epheral illumination. He walked forward—
He stayed in place, but not for lack of trying. He put one foot forward, but his center of gravity didn't change—
Oh! He was weightless! His back foot pressed against the orange stone underfoot, but instead of touching, his foot sort of puddled against the ground, turning into white light that stretched out from where he touched. He picked his foot up, and it ca out of that puddle, the sa as it went in…
He picked up both feet, and hovered in the air. He couldn't move from his original position except to wave his hands and body around. He was a human lightward; stuck in place forever more.
Or at least until he turned the spell off. Which he did. Which caused him to fall to his butt with a little "Oof!" popping out of his mouth, and his [Personal Ward] flickering white light across his skin.
He stood up and sighed out—
He paused. He was breathing. Well, duh. Of course he was breathing. But what was odd—
He turned the spell back on, and the need to breathe... vanished? Yup. That was right. He had not noticed it before, but he did not need to breathe when he was light. Odd! Useful, too? Yes; definitely useful. Jane hadn't ever ntioned this before.
… There didn't seem to be a downside to not breathing.
And what was even odder, was that his brain was not telling his body to automatically breathe. He looked down. Oh. No. He had it wrong. He wasn't exactly breathing; no air seed to flow through his nose or mouth, but his chest was rising and falling like normal. He was 'breathing'. Sort of?
He forcefully stopped breathing.
… Nope. His chest continued to gently rise and fall.
He said, "What is going on with that?"
It was only after the words escaped his body —they had not escaped his lips, for sure, but rather his whole self, in so odd sort of way— that he realized sothing very peculiar, that might have given a hint as to so stranger mystery that had been on Erick's mind ever since he started really working lightwards.
Back when he was first learning magic, when he tried to apply for a lightwarding license from the Mage Guild, he had accidentally created a lightward that scread. He had never been able to duplicate that effect after that day. Lightwards did not usually make noise, after all.
Properly made lightwards, anyway?
There was a book in Esoteric Magic that listed the stranger magical effects that had been observed in the world. One of the stranger phenonon was that of the 'uneducated lightwarder'. When soone with [Ward] below level 10, who had no formal training, tried to make a lightward, they sotis failed in weird and spectacular ways. One of those failures was in the creation of a noisy lightward.
Now what did all of that have to do with being able to speak while he was [Lightwalk]ing?
Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot of sothing. Erick had no idea.
He looked down. "And my chest is still rising and falling… Hmm."
Erick canceled [Lightwalk]. He held his breath. He activated [Lightwalk]. His chest was not moving up and down. Strange!
"Maybe it puts in a stasis? That only looks like ? Is that it? But I can still move my limbs… But I can't walk forward." He shrugged, and said, "I haven't even used the skill yet, duh. This is the next test."
Erick pushed a point of mana and intent into the skill, exactly how he would do to cast any magic, urging himself forward. He imdiately began to drift through the air of the room, disturbing nothing at his passing. He watched as the wall on the other side of the room got closer, and closer. When he struck the wall, he struck it arm first. Fingers turned to light puddles, followed closely by hands, legs, and then his face. He fully touched the wall, and beca a white layer of epheral light upon the orange surface. His eyesight was briefly impaired, but as he thought about what was happening, he wondered why his eyesight was impaired at all. He was literally light, right now.
With that thought, and a ntal turn, Erick beca a puddle of light on the wall, that looked back the way he ca. Another point of intent-filled mana pushed Erick off of the wall. His hands ca out of the white puddle first, followed by his knee and then the rest of him. He drifted back into the open air of the room, facing the interior.
He set his feet down to catch himself, and canceled the spell. Weight returned. Breathing ca back. His eyesight returned to its normal location of out from his eyes. Normalcy was restored.
He mumbled, "I wonder if shadowspiders even have lungs? Or spiracles… whatever spiders usually have."
Erick had not really experinted with lightwards in the way he was planning, now, but he felt he should, just to see if he was misunderstanding sothing. He plucked a pebble from the floor with [Stoneshape], then cast a special ball of blue light around the pebble; the outside of the wardlight was solid blue, but the inside was solid white.
As he held the wardlight in his hand, he could already tell that he was on the right track.
The wardlight flickered blue around his hand, but where it touched the skin of his wrist, it was deford. Tiny flickers of white light escaped against his skin.
He went to the door of the room, the only surface that was thin enough for this experint, and pressed the blue wardlight to the surface.
Just as he expected, the wardlight deford upon contact with the solid surface, turning into a disjointed puddle against the solid door. White flickers escaped at the joining. The radius of the wardlight was more than enough to fully go through the door, too, but the light did not appear on the other side.
It was possible that [Lightwalk] turned a person into sothing similar to a wardlight version of themselves, at the ti of casting. He was able to get a version of himself that breathed, and another that did not, but neither version actually needed to breathe. Neither version needed to actually be physically whole, either, as Erick was able to smush himself against the wall like wardlight with no ill effects afterward.
Erick dismissed the blue wardlight around the stone and set the stone on the windowsill. He turned back to the room and tossed a complete lightmask into the air; blocking out all light in a ter sphere. A darkness appeared, like a black hole. Erick turned himself to light, then touched the darkness.
His lightform body did not deform against the black space, but his fingers touched the darkness, and made it solid. Or maybe his fingers turned solid? Whatever the case, the complete maskward was a barrier, unlike touching the wall, or a floor.
Erick dismissed the maskward. In its place, he conjured a shadowy space, where half of all light was blocked. Touching this dim space was like pressing his hand into wet concrete; he could do it, but he felt resistance…
Erick pulled his hand back, dismissed the shadowy orb, and went through all of his senses.
Touch was the first offender to get scrutinized, because aside from touching the maskward, which he had definitely done, touching anything else felt like a simple pressure that deford his lightform body based on the degree he pressed into the object. Touching darkness felt like touching sothing real.
Maybe he could only exist in the light, when he was in lightform?
Ah. Yes. That would make sense. Duh.
But why the difference in his sense of touch, between pressing into a maskward versus pressing into a wall?
Hmm.
Erick left that be for now, then scrutinized his sense of sight. Since he had already proven he wasn't his physical self, it seed rather arbitrary that he saw the world through his 'eyes' didn't it? He had already made himself a pressed puddle against a wall, and was able to 'turn' his body around in that puddle to see back to the room, so maybe he just needed to see with his feet, or with the back of his head?
In their talks, Jane had briefly spoken of how she was able to see and hear with her [Greater Shadowalk].
Maybe a part of unlocking [Greater Shadowalk] was tuning all of your senses into your new, magical form? Or was that the bonus of the 'greater' title at work? There was probably a 'chicken-egg' thing happening there, but just as with that old saying, there was one thing that had to co first.
... But this was a world of magic! Maybe the chicken truly did co first? Wouldn't that be sothing.
Erick pinged intent-filled mana into [Lightwalk], trying to 'see through his feet', for the next minute, but got nowhere. He would co back to this, later.
Taste would have to be scrutinized later, too. How would he do that, though?
Hearing worked perfectly fine, but he was not really hearing with his ears, was he?
… He turned on [Hunter's Instincts].
He tasted the air floating through his body, slling baking bread wafting up from downstairs. He knew Kiri was working on sothing in the kitchen, so that made sense. Erick heard heartbeats nearby; only two of them. One belonged to Kiri, the other to Poi. Erick's head guard was standing outside of the open door to this room, exactly as he had been since Erick started his experints.
But stronger than taste and sound, Erick saw all around him as though he was a light sli; 360 degree full, clear vision.
Erice drew his senses back to himself, and smiled. He even saw himself smile, like he was both inside his body, and outside, at the sa ti.
"Gods," Erick said, "That's trippy."
He dropped [Hunter's Instincts] and was suddenly back inside his 'body'.
"Also trippy," he said, to himself. He pulled up his Status, just to see if he could. It ca up easy enough. He put it away, saying, "No accidental [Hunter's Instincts] [Lightwalk] spell." He decided, right then, that he was going to try for just such a spell, just to see what he would get…
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… When he understood what he was going for better; later.
He flexed his shoulders, and paused to marvel at how he didn't actually flex his shoulders at all. He just moved a lightward version of himself around a bit, mimicking what he would have done if he had a real body. Ah, well, whatever!
He popped 10 intent-filled mana into [Lightwalk], trying to move across the room.
He splattered against the wall five ters away, briefly turning into a puddle of light, before plopping back into the air just before the wall. It was only slightly embarrassing. Reorienting back to the room, he experinted with amounts of mana and the distance it would gain him. One point of mana, gently cast, moved him forward at a slow, walking pace. Two points of mana was running. More mana was required to change direction, but that was also trivial; Erick's mana never went much under 'full'. Soon, Erick was rushing around the room, silently flying fast and reckless. He would have been puking if he were in his normal body.
He was disoriented, for sure, and he silently crashed into walls over and over again, but he took no damage, and there was no pain.
Erick continued to zip around. And then he canceled the spell, running full tilt forward, just to see what would happen. He instantly realized his mistake. He crashed into the stone wall with a loud whap.
He opened his eyes to see Poi standing over him, holding the rod of [Treat Wounds].
"You're already up." Poi said, "Only one use of the rod, too."
Erick tried to smile, but ended up groaning a bit. He sat up. He breathed. Whatever pain there had been, quickly passed. He said, "I'm fine?" He declared, "Of course I'm fine."
Poi asked, "Having fun hurting yourself?"
Erick laughed, and that briefly hurt, but no part of him felt injured enough to need a [Treat Wounds]. He stumbled to his feet, saying, "It's kinda fun. Yeah. But it's ti to take this experint outside."
- - - -
Erick and Poi blipped into the center of an unimportant and unremarkable stretch of the Crystal Forest, where the agave were few, the mimics were of average density, and the sun beat down from a clear, blue sky. A hot wind blew into Erick's clothes, as Ophiel blipped into the air above. Erick began using [Lightwalk].
In this bright, windy place, Ophiel trilled to ride the breeze, and Erick discovered a quick truth about [Lightwalk]; it was easier to walk around in the sun. So easy, in fact, that he was doing just that. Without spending mana to move.
He walked across the sand, and it was almost as though he was in a real, physical body. He wasn't, of course; he was in the wardlight-esque form of [Lightwalk]. But he could touch the ground, and feel the sand move at his weight. He could pick up the sand, too. He took an experintal step into the air, and then he was walking on air; simple as that.
Ophiel tried to land on his shoulder. It did not go well. The little guy planted his lower wings onto nothing, settling down into a surprised flute fall through Erick's body that beca an intensely confused guitar solo and a sudden expansion to full, three-ter size. Ophiel lood over Erick, who just curled up into the air, laughing. Wing pokes failed to find purchase on Erick; Erick was an epheral being, right now.
At Ophiel's loom, Erick realized that being under his [Familiar]'s shadow was like being back in the room of the house; he needed to use mana to move.
Ophiel dropped down into his tiny self and cried in flutes—
And that would just not do! Erick quickly gave Ophiel [Lightwalk], and had him cast a [Prismatic Ward] into the air, enveloping both of them, and Poi, placing the three of them inside the Restful air. Ophiel could play around with the spell now, too, and just retreat to dense air if he needed to Rest.
Ophiel shifted into a being of light and air, then poked at Erick with his tiny wings. This ti, the poke landed. Ophiel crashed into Erick's chest, trilling in happy harps and satisfied violins, as Erick held him in a tight hug.
"There, there." Erick said, "See? It's just a new spell." He offered, "Go play. See how you like it."
Ophiel took off to play in the air.
Erick looked over to Poi, and said, "I ate half the horn and got [Lightwalk] but I couldn't stop myself from eating the rest, trying for so better skill." He added, "Sorry, Poi. I should have saved it for you."
Ophiel darted through the light. He cast no shadow while in lightform, but he carved no air, either. A quick burst of annoyed flutes told the world he did not like that, at all. He turned off the new spell, ending his own lightform experint with another unhappy spurt of flute sounds.
Poi said, "Experints cost money, and since you created a light sli dungeon, that horn is not so precious that it needed to be used in the best possible way." He added, "I don't have an Elental Body skill, and I don't want one, either; but thank you, anyway."
"You don't?" Erick floated through the air, saying, "It's really quite strange." He asked, "How do you hurt soone in a [Lightwalk], anyway?"
Poi said, "I can show you if you want. It shouldn't hurt."
Erick said, "Lay it on ."
Poi nodded, then said, "This is just [Lightshape]."
Poi stepped to Erick and tapped him in the chest. Thump thump.
"Okay." Erick floated backward a step, frowning, saying, "You were able to touch . That's different."
"That's not what happened. I made you solid."
"… There's a difference?— Oh wait. Yeah. There's a difference. No body to harm ans stuff like Decay magic and Burning magic can't stick. I didn't drop [Lightwalk], after all. You were just able to touch my projection. Or rather, you made solid." Erick asked, "But what does that an in a fight?"
"Against those monsters without ans to damage or control light, it ans you take a great deal less damage. In so cases, you take no damage at all. Against those with access to light-disrupting attacks, it ans you take a great deal more damage." Poi added, "I have heard that with training you can evade opposing light-based effects by not being where the attacker thinks you are, but mostly, [Lightwalk] is best used to evade and flee, and only when necessary. As soon as an attacker knows that you're capable of [Lightwalk], they can attack you inside that [Lightwalk]. The outco is usually rather bad."
Erick's eyes almost went wide, but he schooled his expression to a simple smile; he almost wanted to say 'that was the most you've ever talked about magic, Poi!', lest the man never say anything again. Instead, Erick changed the subject, "Are they ready for rain at the lake, yet?"
Ophiel turned into light and settled down onto Erick's shoulder, trilling in tiny violins.
Poi looked to the air. He said, "No. They're still working on de-glassing the land around the city. It might take a few more days before they're ready for rain."
"Hmm..." Erick looked to Ophiel. He said, "I'll go help after I'm done here."
The first thing he did was use [Lightwalk]s pseudo-[Teleport] to better understand that functionality; doing so was simple enough. All he had to do was throw anything over 15 mana into the spell and he moved from one location under the sun, to another, fifteen ters away. He blipped back and forth like that, more than a few tis, experiencing the spell, imbuing varying amounts of mana to see how far he could get with one [Lightwalk] blip. Soon enough, he was blipping a hundred ters at a ti, back and forth, up and down.
When he was satisfied with what he was seeing and feeling, Erick settled down near Poi and summoned a second Ophiel. He sent the first Ophiel into the air as Erick stayed on the ground, in normal form, to take direct control.
Setting up the superposition experint he had created on Oceanside was simple enough.
After a dozen tests where he shut down his senses and felt the mana around him and practiced being in two places at once, thanks to the extra senses that [Hunter's Instincts] helped him to understand, Ophiel blipped in a manner that was entirely different from a normal [Lightwalk] blip. When Erick ca back to himself, he had a notification waiting for him.
Special Quest Complete!
You have remade a Basic Spell.
Since you already have Blink, have this instead:
1 point!
He said, "Special Quest Complete! That was easier than I thought it would be."
Poi just nodded.
Recreating [Teleport] would likely be a great deal more trouble than [Blink]. When he was experinting with [Lightwalk]'s pseudo-[Teleport] range, he dumped a thousand mana into the spell but still only managed to travel a hundred ters. Maybe there was a range limit when it ca to working the spell how Erick was working the spell, or maybe there was an exponential growth curve to blipping mana costs? It was hard to tell which theory was more true.
And then there was the matter of splitting his senses between two locations 1000 kiloters apart. Where would he even start with that requirent? Through [Scry], perhaps? But that would make a tier 2 spell, wouldn't it?
Erick quickly ca to the realization that there was a reason [Blink] and [Teleport] were both Basic Tier spells, even though you needed the first before you could buy the second. Recreating [Blink] had been easy; barely an inconvenience. Recreating [Teleport] would take a lot more experintation.
Maybe he needed [Greater Lightwalk]? Or maybe not? How had Everlin Etherspray done it? She was the air elentassi who had created the first spatial magic for the Script, but she had died in a ti of turmoil, along with every other Half on Veird. She left few legacies behind.
… Apogee had probably tracked her life? Maybe? He was a Spatial Mage, after all. Had he done that in order to try and find a way back ho?
… How far had he gotten in his search?
Erick had to go see about the lake and the ranch, anyway. Maybe Apogee would be there, clearing glass?
How long would it take for Apogee to open up about his experiences as a Spatial Mage? Could Erick even get him to do that? Apogee was obviously reluctant to talk about his planar experience, but maybe he'd be okay talking about his spatial magic?
- - - -
Erick expected Apogee to be there, working among the black, spiked and puddled glass north of Spur, but he was not. Plenty of other people were. Dozens of platforms floated over the dark land, each of them carrying two or three people. By Erick's estimations, one person had to be controlling the platform, but everyone on the various platforms seed to be working on the glass below. At their passing, black glass turned to dark sand. Maybe it'd turn back to orange after so rain?
Not all of the land here was the sa. In one part of the land a chunk of glass the size of a small house had been lifted from the rest. It was here that Erick found the organizers of the cleanup effort, all floating on their own platforms around the large protrusion; Mage Guildmaster Sirocco Zago, along with several other people that Erick had seen before, but couldn't quite rember. Erick floated his platform, including himself and Poi, to the grouping. As he got closer, a woman there noticed him, then spoke to Zago.
Zago turned and waved at him, calling out, "Hello, Erick!"
Erick floated his platform to the eting, saying, "Hello, Sirocco. So we're just turning it back to sand?"
"Mostly: Yes." Zago stepped to the edge of her platform, nearest to Erick, as she gestured to the large, uneven ridge of black glass behind her. "Except for the larger prominences like this one, it's all getting turned to sand."
Erick looked at the black glass protrusion again. It was kinda artsy? Maybe that's why they wanted it? He asked, "What's going on with that one?"
"So of these larger pieces might hold enough remnants of the Red Dot to allow us to understand the Red Dot. It destroyed souls, after all, and not through any necromancy, but through pure power that rewrote Reality into Fire." Zago waved a dismissive hand through the air, saying, "But that's for the [Dispel] mages. They'll give us so insight into unraveling that spell later, I'm sure. That's not my field of study."
Erick looked to the people near Zago. A few of them were silently stealing glances Erick's way, but two people only had ti for each other, and the rock. One of them was a pale orcol woman, while the other was a dark wrought incani man.
Erick said, "I heard there was so difficulty with [Dispel]ing the Red Dot." He asked, "Was the Red Dot just too expensive?"
The wrought must have heard Erick, because he spoke up, "No." He interrupted his conversation with the orcol woman to turn his attention to Erick, saying, "It was a 10,000 mana spell, at most."
The orcol woman argued, "It was not that cheap." She glanced toward Erick, saying, "25,000, at the least. It was the spell of an archmage of so sort."
"A savant, perhaps. No one I ever heard of," said the wrought.
Zago said, "Archmage Flatt. May I introduce to you Ranari Irinsi, and Hadragog Newfield."
Erick said, "Hello."
Ranari, the wrought, frowned at Erick, saying, "You realize, of course, that your premature detonation of the Red Dot was an ill conceived and almost disastrous end to Spur. Thank the gods for the real archmages like Opal who managed to save the lives of everyone you almost dood to a fiery end."
Erick faltered in a response, and Ranari sneered. Anger blood in Erick's chest.
Erick practically spat out, "Did you try and fail to stop the dot? Yes? Okay then. Case closed."
Ranari chuckled ever so slightly, before saying, "I'm not pretending to be an archmage, unlike so people who shall go unntioned. All I am is a Dispeller."
Erick did not look to Zago. He did not look to anyone else. He just nodded, and turned his platform around. He heard quiet, angry voices behind him, but he did not turn to see whatever was going on back there.
But then soone yelped.
Erick turned around just in ti to see Hadragog standing where Ranari stood, and Ranari crash to the black glass below. Ranari stood up atop the glass—
Erick turned away. Seeing Ranari get pushed to the ground didn't make him feel any better. Sohow, it made him feel worse. In a split second, his day had gone bad.
And then he felt bad for feeling bad.
When he had floated far enough away from Zago's gathering, and his words would not easily reach anyone else's ears except for Poi's, Erick asked, "Did I do right, trying to stop the Red Dot? I showed you [Pure Reflection Ward]. It reflects all magic, perfectly. When Jane used it, she managed to make the Queen of the Forest kill herself on her own spell." He looked around. "But I think when I used it, I just stressed out Opal."
Poi said, "I have it on good authority that you did not stress Opal's ability to shield the city. She was only able to block the Red Dot's fire because most of it had been directed away from the city." Poi said, "Ranari is a known misanthrope. He is a great Dispeller, but best not to pay him any mind in any social situation."
"… How bad would it have been if it hit?"
"ssalina's village was two kiloters wide, but the crater that replaced that location was also two kiloters wide, with well defined edges. The forest beyond her village did not burn; the Red Dot fit the location." He added, "It is entirely possible that the Red Dot would have carved out a two kiloter hole where the Courthouse is, but it's theoretically possible that the Red Dot would have carved all the way to the walls. It was a magnitude 9 spell, after all." He gazed at the black glass all around them, saying, "It certainly created a fire storm 20 kiloters wide, with enough power to lt glass and burn Reality."
Erick felt his heart drop. "Did I… Did I make it worse?"
"Obviously not." Poi said, "You detonated that spell early, bringing it from a concentrated magnitude 9 down to a diffuse magnitude 9. That's a big difference."
Erick sighed into the northern wind, saying, "You're going to have to explain that magnitude system to so day, Poi."
Poi smiled, saying, "But not today."
"… I guess not."
Erick began summoning Ophiel. He had the first one cast a full power [Prismatic Ward] across their floating platform. Then he sent out the rest with [Stoneshape], and directions to turn black glass into fine sand. When his mana ca back, he summoned more Ophiel; quickly reaching the full ten.
And then they went to work, together, each of them casting an Aurify'd [Stoneshape], each of them flying in formation, with Erick in the lead. They rolled across the land turning black glass into black sand.
Not all sand was created equally. Erick knew this well before he ca to Veird, or to Oceanside, to learn about such spells as [Stoneshape] in a classical classroom setting. And besides, Al spoke about the intricacies of [Stoneshape] enough to jog Erick's mory.
The classifications of sand was determined by the size of the particles. Sand that is so fine you can't tell the particle size is actually clay. Between being able to see the particles and clay, you have silt. Sand is anything with a particle size large enough to see; mostly. [Stoneshape] did okay making clay, but clay-making with magic was a process. That was probably what the slow moving people were making.
Or maybe they were making sothing else?
Whatever the case, Erick and his Ophiels went about making sand. The glass was as much as four foot deep in so locations, but mostly it was only a foot deep, or maybe two, and all of that needed to go away. They'd need clay to make the lake bottom, but other people could do that. Turning this solid, glass land, into workable dirt ca first.
Poi spoke up when they were done with the first kiloter of transformation, "Guildmaster Zago has inford that she appreciates your zeal, but would appreciate it more if you could pretend to have done enough, and let the other people also work to repair their ho, too."
Erick looked up and out. There were maybe only five other groups of people out here, but no one had gotten near each other; there was plenty of work to go around.
"… Please tell her that I'll do another square kiloter, and then stop."
Poi nodded. "I will inform her of your decision."
- - - -
They didn't want him turning the land back to sand, either up north or anywhere else outside the wall. There were no books to read. The house was immaculate; a place for everything and everything in its place. He asked Poi to ask Liquid if she wanted any more Stat rings and which kinds, but the Army's Quartermaster declined his offer with little explanation. Dinner was in the oven, cooking away, and Kiri had already made dessert. That dessert was sitting in the kitchen, under a glass cover, right now. Teressa was out working with rit and the Guard; she had formally transitioned to a soldier of the Guard soti in the last few days. Erick was kinda miffed about that. Not that she would transition, or anything like that. But he was worried about her.
He was worried about a lot at the mont, but he had done everything he could do aside from more magical experints, and right now, he couldn't do much except for worry.
From whatever the Shades were up to, to Jane getting in deeper with Oceanside, to Rats joining up with ssalina, to the fact that there was a power vacuum for hunters in the Crystal Forest. He had hoped that Apogee might show up and take his mind off so of his worries with a good, distracting conversation, but a kid wearing a blue vest and a blue badge appeared at his doorway, carrying a letter declining Erick's offer of dinner and clippings from his cinnamon trees.
Standing in the foyer, after the kid was gone and the door was shut, Erick brandished the letter at the air, asking Poi, "Did he take so clippings from sowhere else? I thought he would want to know where the cinnamon flavor ca from!" He settled down, saying, "I was all ready to talk about the spice trade back on Earth."
Poi seed to lightly wrestle with so hidden emotion, then said, "I doubt he'd want to hear it."
"… You're probably right." Erick folded the letter back up. He liked to hold on to the letters, and this one would be the start of a new collection. Or maybe not. He'd set it aside for now, anyway. He asked Poi, "Does Mog have any monsters to kill? Shadow monsters would be good."
"You cleared her list weeks ago." Poi paused. He reluctantly offered, "If you wish to try your skills against monsters from the Hole, we can go there at any ti."
Kiri called out from down the hallway, "A hunting trip?" A chair scraped across the stone floor, monts before Kiri appeared. She looked at Erick with hopeful eyes, and Sunny wrapped loosely around her shoulders. "I want to try so things with Sunny at the Hole."
Erick saw Poi's unhappiness out of the corner of his eyes. He said to Kiri, "Then you and I can go from here with the [Familiars] and Poi doesn't have to worry." He added, "Oh! And we can duel like how we used to, but without holding back."
Kiri's eyes lit up green, as she said, "I accept." She paused. She asked, "Do we need to register the trip with the guild if it's just the [Familiar]s?"
Poi said, "If you aren't going yourselves, then that's just extra paperwork that no one would care to record or file." He added, "It's only to keep track of where adventurers were last seen, anyway."
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